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Pi2 is pretty good…

Dpicc….

Thanks :-)

Nope, both hand built by me.

Got the wood cut to the right witdh at B&Q then set to it with the jigsaw and router.

Currently building two more for people that have seen these and want one – another space invader one (with illuminated buttons and joysticks) and a simpsons themed one

There are tons of stores online. If you’re in the US go to FocusAttack. If you’re in the UK Ultracabs is pretty good. I’ve got some stuff shipped to me from Arcade World UK that should arrive in a week or so. It seems like the Europeans have way more options than we do in the states!

First, read and plan a lot out before you buy anything.

So here’s what I’m doing (and your mileage may vary). The joystick and top buttons are suzo-happ competition. The front buttons (in the pic) were originally suzo-happ but I had to order different ones because of a sizing issue (that’s what’s shipping from Arcade World UK). You’ll need a control board to interface the controls to the RPi, most people love the i-pac 2. For speakers I bought the cheapest car stereo speakers and cheapest little amp I could find on amazon but a lot of people repurpose old computer speakers. Lighting is really any strip-based lighting. Mount a power-strip inside your box, plug everything into that and wire it to a single power button you mount on the back. Marquee can be ordered online. Paint. T-moulding. Plexi. Later I’m going to add in a few more buttons to do things like save state/load state within the emulators.

I’m still working out the circuit to shutdown the pi gracefully (as I’ve heard questionable reviews about the mausberry ones). The plan is to have a capacitor which stores enough juice to run it for a few minutes, then when power is cut it sends a command to the pi to shut it down. I’m fairly certain I can figure it out and there are more than a few guides online.

Just do your research, build it, and then show it off in the other forum for people’s projects. You can also get a lot of good support there.

I haven’t gotten that far yet. Right now everything is on my workbench in my garage while I continue to tinker with the electronics, but there’s something similar here:
http://www.instructables.com/id/2-Player-Bartop-Arcade-Machine-Powered-by-Pi/?ALLSTEPS

I’m sure if you do some reading around online you can wire it up.

phrazelle and chillimonster, those are some awesome builds. Really great job.

[quote=94434]phrazelle and chillimonster, those are some awesome builds. Really great job.[/quote]

Thanks.

:-)

[quote=94444]

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>khayman wrote:</div>
phrazelle and chillimonster, those are some awesome builds. Really great job.

Thanks.

[/quote]

Yes, thank you! This has been a fun project and I already want to make another one after all I learned throughout this build.

For reference, I got my controller kits off of eBay from China here. They work well, but we will see about longevity. The USB interface was recognized by my Pi 2 without issue; plug-and-play.

I also used LED strips for my marquee lighting. These were super cheap, as good of quality as at MicroCenter (they look like the same ones but in different packaging,) and fit the application perfectly. They are pretty bright though, and I am adding a dimmer in to adjust to a sweet spot. Maybe the aluminum tape I put in wasn’t totally necessary and could be causing the issue, but it definitely guarantees no spot-lighting from the strips.

I had my marquee graphic reverse-printed on the piece of acrylic I cut for it at my local print shop. *side note* I cut a piece of acrylic to sit on top of the vinyl control board graphic, but the pressure of the buttons screwed down made visible bubble-esque areas under the acrylic around the buttons and the LED illumination accentuated it to the point of it looking tacky. I ended up removing the acrylic altogether. I would have the graphic reverse printed on that acrylic piece if I were to do it again.

As for my display, I bought a 17″ Dell monitor off of eBay for $10 and ran an HDMI > DVI cable to it. I decased it like chilimonster did as well.

I used a set of 3.5″ Kicker car speakers and an amp from Adafruit for my audio. Had to disable audio dithering on the Pi to fix an audio glitch, but it sounds great.

Some amazing builds. What I would say is have a budget and design what you want before starting. Don’t just base it on having a spare monitor. For example mine had to be portable as I run a game group.

[quote=94456]Got any screenshots on how the led strip is wired into a PSU? I guess I will have an extension lead in the back with the monitor and pi 2 attached.[/quote]

Here is my current setup, but this is changing to add in the main power switch and when I get my ATX PSU in-hand. I attached the amp to the same protoboard that is running the power rail for the LEDs (on the left of the board) so I could have them all powered by the same PSU. I will run the power lines from the amp to the same power rail and have that tapped into the ATX.

That power rail is 12v, so it is powering the LED strips and the triangle buttons on the front of the machine (they are 12v also.)

[quote=94456]Where does the joystick and illuminated buttons get their power from?[/quote]

On the ones I ordered from eBay, the LEDs in the buttons are 5v and pull power through the USB connection to the Pi.

[quote=94459]did the joysticks that Arcade USB kit have on ebay make any annoying “click” sounds when push arround[/quote]

No clicking on the LED buttons, but the 1 & 2 player and triangle buttons, as well as the joysticks all use the push button micro switches, so you get the “click.”

[quote=94456]So these uses one congtroller for both players?[/quote]

These have individual boards for each player with an independent USB cable for each.

[quote=94459]Why do some use the ipac2 and others the usb method?[/quote]

From what I understand, the ipac system emulates a keyboard (best suited for PC builds) for usage when you can only (or easily) assign button configurations to keyboard layouts instead of USB controllers. The Pi has no issue identifying most USB controllers – or at least with a little tweaking.

[quote=94459]What did you use to cover the monitor, plastic or glass?[/quote]

I used acrylic (plexiglass)

[quote=94459]How did you power the led strips and install a dimmer, very smart idea![/quote]

The power layout is above, and the dimmer will be a 10k potentiometer with a 1-450ohm resistor (haven’t tested yet) in line to keep the LEDs from blowing out.

Just in case you have not seen it already: The ControlBlock (https://www.petrockblock.com/2014/12/29/controlblock-power-switch-and-io-for-the-raspberry-pi/) was also designed as combined controller and power interface for bartop arcade systems. There are videos at the end of the post about the ControlBlock – they show the usage with arcade controllers as well as the power switch functionality:

Yeah. Got your message and will reply tomorrow with details.

No problem with the video. Hope it helps.

For the audio you can edit the config file and add the line

disable_audio_dither=1

This sorts most of the background noise.